Icewind Dale

[ksaf]

Just saw an enhanced version on steam. Never got to play it back in the day. Is it worth it?

[NoRest4Wicked]

I love IWD, I replay it every couple years. Both 1 and 2 were great games if you are into that type of top down D&D RPG.

[Synbios]

I only played IWD2 and it was great. It's better than BG2 in many ways because the rules are more advanced or something. But the storytelling/interactions are very different because of the way you get to create your own party. You lose the interesting characters but as a min/maxer I really liked the customization (though you could technically have done it with BG2). I assume you've played BG2. If you haven't you may want to pick that one up first.

[zealo]

Given that BG:EE had a number of bugs when it first came out it might be worth waiting a while for this one, but yes IWD is a fantastic RPG in general.

[Zaelsino]

I only played IWD2 and it was great. It's better than BG2 in many ways because the rules are more advanced or something. But the storytelling/interactions are very different because of the way you get to create your own party. You lose the interesting characters but as a min/maxer I really liked the customization (though you could technically have done it with BG2). I assume you've played BG2. If you haven't you may want to pick that one up first.

This was about my experience with IWD2 as well.

There's no party banter or recruitment, but there's still a lot of colourful allies and villains to interact with. Your characters still feel somewhat unique since the race/class/alignment of your speaker often changes dialogue and how NPCs will deal with you; there's a lot of attention to detail like that. Most of the fights felt a bit bigger and more hectic than in BG too.

I preferred 2 to 1 but it's still worth a buy if you like these sorts of games.

[RoninaThorstone]

Just saw an enhanced version on steam. Never got to play it back in the day. Is it worth it?

Is this a real question?

Ofc Icewind dale is worth it.

Go play it.

Now.

[Teroseth]

I can't speak for the Enhanced Edition, but the original Icewind Dale is one of my favourite games of all time and (imho) should be played by anyone and everyone who loves video games.

[ksaf]

Great. That's what i like to hear. Time to catch up.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

If you liked Pillars of Eternity or the BG series, you'll love Icewind dale.

[Wilian]

Bioware's former employee Trent Ost makes quite good comparison and explanation of Icewind Dale

“Icewind Dale was kind of this left-turn where you just jumped out and it was all about the bashing and combat and winning the fight and wondering what was around the next corner, that was going to be as challenging or even more challenging than what you just fought,” said Oster.

“At BioWare at some points we tried to introduce puzzles that were different. Icewind Dale is like combat puzzles. And they’re just fun.”

Just as BioWare and their publishing counterparts at Black Isle were getting to grips with the possibilities of their engine, so too were their players. They salivated at the chance to spend two hours in character creation - building an entire six-person party from the ‘gender’ button onwards, rolling and re-rolling their stats as they went.

“I think that’s where a lot of the satisfaction of Icewind Dale comes from,” said Oster. “By knowing the rules and by being able to build great combination characters and play them how they’re intended, you can do some amazing things that you wouldn’t think are possible with a party.”

By the turn of the millenium, BioWare had learned to play their henchmen off against each other to produce their juiciest dialogue. But Black Isle’s Icewind Dale, with its player-made party members, didn’t have that. Nor did it have the conversation-filled city hubs that punctuate play in Baldur’s Gate. What it had in great, snowy dollops was something Black Isle had learned on Fallout: atmosphere.

“Those guys were good,” recalled Oster. “To me Black Isle was always about really, really strong artwork, and it still looks phenomenal. It’s just haunting.

“Initially we were pretty intimidated by it, but once we started working with the content we were like, ‘Man, this stuff is so beautiful, it holds up so well’.”

When Black Isle did allow themselves to unsheath their quills, Oster reckons they often outdid BioWare - whose plots were more “convoluted”.

“I always found Black Isle’s writing to be a lot more direct, a lot shorter,” he said. “At BioWare I think we tended to get a little novelistic. Whereas Chris’ stuff was more colloquial, and more accessible.”

[The Casualty]

The Icewind Dale series looks and plays a lot like the Baldur's Gate series of games, but is more combat driven. I thought 2 was a better game than 1, but it was a great game none the less.

[Ripster42]

IWD2 is possibly my favorite PC RPG.

I played it before BG and IWD and those two games weren't near as fun afterwords as I'm guessing they would have been.

[Buu]

"Liked Pillars of eternity" how could someone have "liked" a game which is not even released yet?

About Icewind Dale, I found some places pretty puzzling, with the available equipment not fitting the enemies in dungeons, which made the game very strategy-heavy.
I don't know if the enhanced version will preserve the feel that you're always underpowered, which fits the "you're playing in past, when epic adventurers were non-existent".
But that's the only charm of the game. Feeling like you're in the old times of Abeir-Toril, when epic loot and complex spells didn't exist. The story is not very compelling, probably because the lack of "epicness". Still pretty fun tho.

[Cakka]

"Liked Pillars of eternity" how could someone have "liked" a game which is not even released yet?

What I thought too LOL. Anyway IWD is pretty bestest if you like combats.

[Arrashi]

Fuck yeah, one of my favourite games of childhood. Replaying it once a year every christmas break.

Just make sure to play on max difficulty with heart of winter/heart of fury (whatever its called in english) mode on. And be a man - make party of 6 dwarves.

[Deleted]

I don't really like how those games played in retrospective, so I wouldn't do it again and probably would not recommend the game. I think that converting rulebook into game was easy thing to do at time, but since it was never meant for single player or computers, it's not very entertaining by itself.

It's also worth mentioning that there were some bugs preventing you from advancing in the game under some circumstances, which added quite some frustration.

But then again if you just want some story and don't really mind the game attached to it, then it's not really bad.